Non temp control on "warm" ferment beers...

[Clint]

Hello all
While I normally brew in my brew fridge,controlling fermentation temperature, occasionally I find the fridge busy and I want to get another brew going. While this time of year we can struggle to keep a brew cool...wheats and Saisons are different.
To my horror I find I'm out of wheat beer and my Saison stocks are dwindling...so the plan is to get one or the other on the go and bung it on the heat pad in the garage. Current garage temps are around 20c..but obviously not controlled...would letting the beer do its own thing in terms of temp be that much detrimental to it?

 

[SteveH]

I've not got space for a brew fridge at all currently so have a compromise which is a heat pad combined with an inkbird, that works well to reduce the dip in temp overnight, avoids the heat pad getting things too hot during the day, and allows for ramping the temp towards the end of fermentation.

When it's really hot I'll do as you say and switch to either a saison yeast or recently I tried CML voss, not ideal but has worked out pretty well for me so far!

 

[Clint]

I've done lots of non controlled fermentation before I was aware of brew fridges etc...I drank all the beer I made but now always try to get them in the fridge...it's specifically warmer ferment beers I was wondering about...

 

[TheCount]

I'd suggest starting to ferment under pressure. I tend to use my refrigerator to ferment ales and pressure ferment my lagers at room temperature. Since cold fermenting lagers takes up the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks extra and you usually want a somewhat estery character for ales this is an excellent solution for me. Another plus is that I can brew one batch a week while controlling the fermentation.

 

[Hanglow]

I do saisons in the garage. I tend to put the fermentor into a builders trug with another 15L of water in it which regulates temperature swings more, then heat the trug/water with a heat mat and immersion heater attached to the inkbird to make sure the temperature is kept up.

 

[marshbrewer]

How about looking at the maximum temp likely over the next 7 days, then brewing at a temp slightly over that, for instance if you think it's going to max out at 20°, the brew at 22° with the heat pad and then it will always be at a constant, stable temp?

 

[cheeseyfeet]

I'd suggest starting to ferment under pressure. I tend to use my refrigerator to ferment ales and pressure ferment my lagers at room temperature. Since cold fermenting lagers takes up the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks extra and you usually want a somewhat estery character for ales this is an excellent solution for me. Another plus is that I can brew one batch a week while controlling the fermentation.

Do you have any issues pressure fermenting lagers with temp variations over the course of the day / night?

Thinking of trying this myself.

 

[cushyno]

I put a shelf in the top of an old outside coal cellar, made a door for the front. I lined the resulting "fermentation cupboard" with the fibrous laminate flooring insulation board and a layer of that foil backed bubble wrap stuff. You could do the same with one of those garden storage containers in your garage.
As this is on the north facing wall of my property it never gets too warm, so I control temperature with a STC-1000 using heating only. This decent sized ferm cupboard can ferment two FV's at a time if necessary while carbing a batch too, but I usually ferment in a fridge and save the cupboard for carbing bottles and PB's.
I have done a saison entirely in this cupbaord, starting at 23degC and raising to 28degC using a greenhouse tube heater attached to the STC-1000.

 

[ChrisT685]

I found a temp control heat belt on Amazon and have successfully used it in my Fermentasaurus keeping temp at 22 degrees in the garage. It has an inbuilt thermostat which I had to play around with to get the temp constant but I worked out where to have the dial sitting to keep that temp. Topbrewing Heat Belt Pro is what I found.

Between that and my trusty Karrimor puffer jacket around the FV, it all stayed constant

 

[TheCount]

@cheesyfeet Not really. Lager yeasts ferment fast at room temps so a small variation between day and night doesn't affect the fermentation. Since pressure reduce the ester formation you won't have any noticeable increase in esters on a warm day either.

 

[crowcrow]

Man, I really want to brew a 'proper' lager soon, I might have to try the pressure route. Do you use a pressure fv or a corny?

 

[TheCount]

Man, I really want to brew a 'proper' lager soon, I might have to try the pressure route. Do you use a pressure fv or a corny?

I use a pressure fermenter but you can use a corny.

 

[Cwrw666]

Except in unusually warm weather I always brew in our airing cupboard. Got a couple in there now - an 1864 Lovibond XB pale ale (Pattinson), just finishing off and a 1909 Maclays 63/- oatmeal stout (Durden park) just started. Temperature control - well the door is about 9 inches open and it's sitting at a steady 22.5c. In winter I'd need the door shut, and if it was a bit warmer I'd need it wide open. The rest of the house is sub 18c.

 

[crowcrow]

I use a pressure fermenter but you can use a corny.

I need a 3rd corny for sure - shame no "cheap" ones around right now, soon...

 

[Kveik Freak]

Have you considered trying a kveik yeast?

There are strains that produce less in the way of esters if you don't want the fruit.

They will still eat more, drop the pH a bit more and finish a bit dryer than other beer yeasts. In my (albeit limited) experience you can compensate for this in the recipe by making sure it has plenty of nutrient (200ppm free amino acids, I find a teaspoon or two of baking yeast boiled in 5L of wort works a treat), a wort that's a about pH 5.4 not 5.2 and plenty of calcium (100ppm+).

If you have soft water and you are brewing low abv (by Norwegian standards, so >8% abv) then adding calcium is pretty critical in my experience.

I've been working on building a fuller body into my ale recipes. Boiling down a portion of the wort to provide extra unfermentable sugars (and colour if you boil it down far enough, I can't remember the technical term right now, it's traditional in Scottish ales) seems to be working pretty well.

Can't comment on non-barley adjuncts since I've still to try them.